The present invention concerns a sanitary facility for cats with automatic cleaning and refilling.
The automatically self-cleaning and self-refilling toilet facility for cats is intended to improve the hygiene of the keeping of household animals.
Annoying odors, which are common in the case of conventional cat toilets are extensively eliminated. Similarly, no manual cleaning, also customary with conventional cat facilities, is required.
Toilet facilities for cats have been known for years and are commercially available in simple forms.
They consist of simple plastic tubs, usually provided with a narrow, removable rim. Another form consists of a simple plastic tub with a transparent, removable upper part, closed all around with the exception of the inlet hole. More recently, replaceable plastic inserts with premeasured quantities of cat litter, have become available.
The disadvantage of these conventional cat toilets available on the market is that they must be cleaned manually after use or the replaceable plastic insert with the used cat litter must be removed by hand.
This process must be repeated after every use for hygienic reasons and also in view of the need for cleanliness of cats.
Another disadvantage of conventional cat toilets is that in spite of the employment of odor retaining cat litters, disagreeable odors are released after use.
A self-cleaning cat toiler is known--G 89 05 314.1.
However, this cat toilet has the following disadvantages.
The used cat litter, on which the cat has already relieved itself, is removed by means of a conveyor belt. For one, due to its mobility, the belt is a hindrance for the cat, which always endeavors to have solid ground under its feet, and secondly parts of the feces remains on the belt in spite of the stripper plate, so that the annoyance of odors is not reduced, due to the feces residues drying in air.
Furthermore, the conveyor belt does not seal the waste container in an air tight manner, as a conveyor belt due to its motion, can never seal as tightly as a tight lid.
Another disadvatage consists of the fact that the cat litter, which drops following the removal process from above through an opening in the conveyor belt onto the bottom, is located on one side of the cat toilet only and is not distributed over the entire bottom.
In addition, due to the fact that the orifices of the litter chamber are closed by the moving belt only, it is not assured that the litter, which is granular to powdery, will deposit on and adhere to the conveyor belt, thereby in time rendering the movement of the rolls impassible.
Furthermore, the conveyor belt may be replaced with difficulty and at a certain expense only.
A further significant disadvantage of this cat toilet is the swinging door, as the cat must virtually push the door open with its head, which involves the risk that its head will be squeezed between the retreating parts of the door, and the cat after this poor experience will not be disposed to use the facility again, the more so since cats are used to relieve themselves in a container with a free opening.
Another risk factor for the cat is the fact that there is no device to prevent it from entering the facility during the movement of the conveyor belt.
Another cat toilet is known from G 84 19 845.1.
This facility has essentially the same disadvantages as the toilet described above. The plastic foil, which is resting on a solid bottom and upon which the cat is relieving itself, is rolled up manually or automatically, wherein the evaporation of the cat urine represents a considerable olfactory nuisance.
Disagreeable odors result further from the storage of the used, i.e. wet, cat litter in a replaceable bag under a receiving container for excrements, which is not sealed in an air tight manner.
The feces separated in the receiving container is again not tightly sealed in and must be removed manually.
In recent years the number of cats maintained as domestic pets has increased considerably.
This is due firstly to that fact that even single person households, the number of which has been steadily rising, are able to keep cats, and secondly, that there is a trend of keeping two or more cats in one household.